best way to track commisions for sale referals? (for smaller sites)

how can a smaller site track purchases initiated by other websites

[amznVibe]

This feels like the right forum for this question but I am surprised I cannot find a previous thread on this (probably searching with wrong terminology).

I have a some sites with small stores (1-5 products) written in javascript and using simple paypal checkouts.

It's occured to me that these specialty sites could really increase sales from the many sister sites that don't sell anything but their webmasters would be willing to recommend the products, especially if they recieved a commision for the referal.

Rather than just pay for a click-through, what is the most reliable way to track a new customer coming into the site and finally purchasing something from that original referal?

My educated guess is that log analysis software is one possible answer and should be fairly reliable, but is there any other answer I could look into? These sites do have cgi/perl and SSI available to them but not PHP, etc.

Thanks for any help (my first post, hope it's a useful one)

[amznVibe]

So, no ideas on how to track commisions on a smaller site?

Was this a dumb question or just a badly formed one? Would appreciate any and all suggestions...

[stevenha]

Here's a thought... but I haven't tried this myself. Try a search for software to run your own affiliate program.

[Crazy_Fool]

you posted over christmas, which isn't the best time to get an answer as many users are taking time out. be patient, answers will come!

does paypal return the customer to the site following payment and send order information back to the site? if not, then i don't see how you can track sales through paypal unless they have their own affiliate program.

[onlineleben]

Try the keywords "conversion tracking" (without quotes). there have been some posts in the Tracking & Logging Forum very recently.
Good luck and let us know the solution to your problem.

[4eyes]

amznVibe

I know of two commonly used ways of doing this:

1/. Using Cookies
You can plant a cookie containing the referrer string and request as part of the ordering process.

2/. Log file analysis
Some of the commercial analyis tools will allow you to track back from your 'success_message.htm' to the referrer string.

Cookies are nice in that they are longer lasting (in case they bookmark and come back next week) but you will miss anyone who blocks cookies.

The log analyis option has the benefit of working even if the user blocks cookies, but has problems of its own - most significantly that of losing the original referrer info if the user bookmarks and returns another day.

If the project mattered to me I'd use both and cross refer.

[amznVibe]

To answer Crazy_Fool, PayPal has a decent back end report to the submitting site called Instant Payment Notification (IPN) So yes, I can determine the payment was actually made and to what customer to tie it to (I can even assign an invoice number and a couple of other hidden fields) The trick is to track that customer coming into the site no matter where they go, through their final check out, without cookies and without post log analysis (needs realiable realtime).

Thanks to the others for the suggested search terms. I have begun to dig through the mire of offered solutions (now that I can spot them). It all seems a bit more complicated than I want for smaller stores but I bet I can hack something out over time by looking at how the bigger packages work.

Its pretty obvious to me now that SSI is gonna have to be a big part of this, client side javascript is not going to be reliable.

Thanks again everyone!

[robertito62]

For smaller sites, I would avoid headaches and go with experienced programs. Both CCbill and Ibill offer partnership programs, easy to set up, that will handle all referring clients, including cuting checks and mailing commissions. At work, we cross check their figures with our own in-house partner-tracking software. Please drop me a line if you want to know its name.

[TallTroll]

>> specialty sites could really increase sales from the many sister sites that don't sell anything but their webmasters would be willing to recommend the products, especially if they recieved a commision for the referal.

That is essentially an affiliate programme, which is something that members here tend to experience more from the other side as an affiliate. There are a number of possible solutions, but which is suitable for you largely dependant on how much of the administration you are able/willing to take on yourself.

Also remember that if you want to attract quality affiliates, you need to offer a quality service to them, which in the long term means taking care of a lot of it yourself, I suspect